SAPA SUSTAINABLE VEHICLE PARTS

The project concerns a selection of the Promoter's investments for Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) activities in the field of advanced, lighter, and more sustainable materials and products for automotive, trucks, off-road vehicles and industrial applications carried out primarily in Italy, Spain and The Netherlands and, to a smaller extent in Poland and Estonia over the period between 2024 and 2027.

The aim is to develop more sustainable and lightweight materials and components; some targets include increasing the percentage of recycled or organic content in the material formulations with no compromise on aesthetic and mechanical strength, improved end-of-life recyclability, reducing components weight by developing and adopting new material formulations, developing new environmentally friendly paint formulations, developing more energy and time efficient drying process, or reducing component's cost through the design of advanced manufacturing processes.

The Project strengthens the know-how, expertise, and competitiveness of a European supplier of injection moulded components, responding to the market demand for increased product's sustainability and reduced cost thus supporting the competitiveness of the European supply chain for such products.

The Project's activities are in line with the Bank's IDHC (Innovation, Digital and Human Capital) public policy goal and are therefore eligible for the Bank's financing under the Research, Innovation and Digital (RID) policy objective. A large portion of the Project contributes to the Bank's economic and social cohesion cross-cutting objective. Part of the Project contributes also to the Bank's Climate Action and Environmental Sustainability (CA&ES) cross-cutting objective (ES-Circular Economy).

The financing of this Project supports Research, Development, and Innovation (RDI) activities that generate significant positive knowledge, technology, and environmental externalities, through the creation of innovative products and skills development and upgrading.

The proposed operation satisfactorily meets the funding needs of the promoter providing additional flexibility in terms of longer tenors and longer grace periods (particularly given the current tighter liquidity in the banking sector) and lower cost of funding. The EIB funding is expected to improve the promoter financial structure by spreading out its repayment profile, reducing the cost of newly incurred indebtedness as well as diversifying its funding base.

The Project consists of investments in RDI that are not listed in any of the Annexes of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive 2011/92/EU amended by the Directive 2014/52/EU. The environmental details will be verified during the project appraisal.

The Promoter has been assessed by the EIB as being a private company not being subject to EU rules on public procurement or concessions. However, if at the Project appraisal, the EIB were to conclude that the Promoter is subject to the EU public procurement legislation then the Bank would duly inform the Commission Services and would require the Promoter to apply those rules.